Every employer needs to be a university

With the pace of information exchange on the Web, being competently knowledgable about one’s field requires constant study. Keeping up can be a full-time job.

Yet how many employers program learning time for their employees? Yes, some will provide tuition assistance. But who gives you a half-day out of five to dig into the latest developments in your industry?

This effort usually comes on your own time. But that’s not reasonable with the volume of information to track, and companies that want to find and retain the best workers need to treat them like students from day one.

Learning more and developing should be a job requirement; not because it’s the right thing to do, but because this is essential behavior if a business wants to remain competitive. A company needs to plan for whoever is hired to leave whatever position they’re hired for by systematically educating him or her out of that role.